“You've got to have faith,” says Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, acquitted this week of a final tax evasion charge.

Two legal cases remain – an online libel conviction and a closure order against Rappler – dating from former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s attempts to muzzle her criticism.

Outside court, she told reporters, “Facts wins, truth wins, justice wins.”

Duterte’s crackdown on illegal drugs – which left thousands of drug suspects dead – is being investigated by the International Criminal Court as a possible crime against humanity.

Ressa has talked of a “lifting of fear” under the new Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos Jr, whose father was thrown out in an army-backed 1986 coup.

Ressa said the acquittal “strengthens our resolve to continue with the justice system, despite… the attacks on press freedom. It shows that the court system works.”